Finding my north star, figuring out what color my parachute is, discovering my Italy, following my bliss, being the best me I can be…..and enjoying the journey

Trash Collecting in Paradise

I did the required reading for the throat chakra and felt a sense of relief. I totally got this chakra, I thought to myself. The book made it sound like it was all about speaking your mind, not telling lies, finding your voice, etc. That’s cool, I thought, I got that under control.

Before class that morning, a fellow yogini and I were discussing the novelty of being back in school after so long and we were laughing about how we were reverting back to our childhood ways of being good students, for fear of getting called out more than anything else.

“I’m such a pleaser,” she said.

“Me too!” I said.

So then yoga practice began and our instructor starts talking about how the throat chakra really deals with the will….how it’s the path between the heart and the mind. Basically, if you’re a pleaser, living life according to what others may think; then you’re lying to yourself…so you’re really just lying.

And guess what? If your throat chakra is blocked, you manifest this in your physical body with a sore neck and upper back and ear problems. Flashback to many doctors appointments for ear issues and good money spent on massage therapists. Well, crap. I gotta work on this chakra too, I thought.

So there’s that. But what I really want to talk about is our field trip because being back in school also means that you get to go on field trips. And that day, we would be practicing karma yoga. Basically, it means that you give if you have it to give. It’s the yoga of action, of selfless giving. So for us, it meant we were going to do a beach clean-up.

But here’s the catch. One of the yogic exercises that goes along with the throat chakra is to hold silence. That means no communication with others, verbally or otherwise. So before we left, we ate breakfast in silence, coffee slurping and forks scraping against plates. We then boarded a old school bus to take us down to the beach, the wheezing and grinding of brakes the only sound accompanying our ride. We were given black bags for trash and green for recycling and set loose upon a stretch of coastal paradise.

My roommate motioned to me silently about working together as a team and we set out with one black bag and one green bag and began to pick our way back into the forested area of the beach where the tides had pushed bits of Styrofoam, plastic bottles and random shoes. We collected silently and I noticed that a man stood across the street, holding a machete and watching us with curiosity.

After a few minutes, he wandered over, machete in hand. We nodded our heads hello and he grabbed a coconut from the ground. “Coco?” he asked us and then followed the question with rapid Spanish. I broke the silence with a good ol’ “No habla Espanol” and he set to hacking open the coconut. When he had opened it and carved a small hole in the top, he passed it to us and motioned for us to drink. We passed it back and forth, the water refreshing and occasionally dripping down the front of our chins. He kept speaking in words that we didn’t understand and when we finished drinking, he took the coconut back, hacked it in half and gave us each a piece.

“Victor,” he said, pointing to himself.

“Muchos gracias Victor,” we said, after introducing ourselves. He gave us a wave and walked away and we continued to silently pick up trash. The irony does not escape me—a beautiful human exchange made in mostly silence, and without a shared language.

As the day progressed, we began to gradually use our words, using them as necessities for communicating important beach clean-up things (including ‘ew gross, look at this’ of course). We amassed bags and bags that day, making more beautiful the beach that brought us so much beauty. We did it because we had it to give.

When we returned to Anamaya, we were rewarded with passionfruit cinnamon smoothies and a delicious lunch of durado, mashed plantain and a carrot salad. The clouds of the morning broke away and we spent our lunch break by the pool, laughing uncontrollably at times. And they say karma’s a bitch but I guess if you treat her nice and put in your time dealing with your throat chakra and picking up trash, she will reward you with coconuts and beautiful moments.

Ashley – I am so enjoying living vicariously thru your amazing blog postings. I’m also happy to see what a tremendous life adventure this has been for you. Talk about closing a door & opening a window!